Hairyducked Idiot

In the last two weeks here, here's your post count by subject: Sports, non-Cubs: 13 Making fun of people or generally attacking them: 7 Non-sports topics: 6 Chicago Cubs: 2 You are barely more than an internet bully. Not only is that role more than well-filled on this site, it is filled by quite a few people more clever than you. But this thread doesn't have to be about seanimal...

http://www.bleachernation.com/2013/03/26/obsessive-wrigley-renovation-watch-the-rooftops-just-launched-a-hail-mary/

I just like reliving 1998. That was such a fun year to be a teenage Cubs fan.

Free agency is also the surest bet on getting something in return for your investment. What? The surest bet to get a bad ROI maybe. Not the surest bet to get a good ROI. The surest bet to get a not awful ROI. When you bet on prospects, you sometimes get this: http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/features/chat020703.html

That field looks terrible.

I wonder what gave them a shot in the arm in 98... the 97 team was awful. RF went from 99 OPS+ to 160 Went from -6 pyth to +5 pyth Kerry Wood

Would be first Opening Day non-sellout since 1997. Early in a certain previous President's tenure, iirc...

http://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2013/3/26/4148562/cubs-opening-day-tickets-not-selling

And there's nothing wrong with free agency being the primary way to make major improvements immediately, when you can afford it and the players you need are available. Major improvements through free agency may not be ideal because of the drawbacks, but the drawbacks to not making the improvements at all are much more severe.

But you're allowed to get excited about things that haven't happened yet?

There's always unintended consequences. I'll take the opportunity cost measured in dollars when the alternative is one measured in years, a much scarcer resource.

I'm pretty sure I can rattle off failed 2000s Cubs prospects at a world-class level, but I have absolutely no memory of Matt Clanton. Google comes up with this fascinating story: http://cubs.scout.com/2/527823.html

When that day comes, you replace the declining/expiring free agents with prospects from the awesome farm system your new guy from Boston spent the last five years putting together. Spending your way back to relevance is a bridge for years when you don't have impact prospects debuting. It doesn't have to be a permanently viable solution for it to be the best one available to the post-2011 Cubs.

And even then, Soriano and Zambrano are sort of reluctant exclusions. We got a lot out of both players. Relevant to the overarching point of this poll/thread: Al Yellon has an article today showing that the Cubs are having serious trouble selling Opening Day tickets and are looking at their first non-sellout on Opening Day since 1997.

It's even worse than that. We'd be projected to win 90 if we signed A, B, and C, but we get: "Why bother signing A? We'll only win 80 games with him, instead of 75. Not worth it." "Why bother signing B? We'll only win 80 games with him, instead of 75. Not worth it." "Why bother signing C? We'll only win 80 games with him, instead of 75. Not worth it."

That 75-win projection is just for the roster they have now. They've got their finger squeezing so tightly around the fire-sale trigger that I'm surprised they haven't shot themselves in the foot. I think we agree on the diagnosis, but not the treatment. I honestly don't think we have a pitcher in the system that we can reasonably project to a rotation spot at any point in the future. Vizcaino has a lot of hurdles between him and sticking as a starter, reliever seems way more likely. All the more reason we needed an Edwin Jackson (at minimum) two years ago to go with the one we got this year. (Digression: I know you never, ever draft for need at the top of the draft, but I can see why doing so with a near-ready college SP is such a focus this year.) I don't want to downplay the job the front office has done getting guys like Rizzo or Travis Wood. But I think that just goes to show that this front office is good enough to have made the "parallel fronts" approach work. If it takes you hundreds of millions to get to an "85-at-best" scenario, you are doing a terrible job with how you spend the money. The 2012 Cubs needed a 3b, a SP or two, a league-average bullpen (it's truly hard to believe how awful of a bullpen our front office managed to put together last year) and some luck. That shouldn't have cost hundreds of millions.

Even if you like the path this front office is taking, I am especially disappointed to have to hear the rumblings of "Trying to win with FA signings are why Hendry failed" on NSBB. That's some Kaplan-level ish right there, and it shouldn't fly here of all places. The 2010-11 Cubs were in a bad shape because of this list: Matt Clanton Chadd Blasko Luke Hagerty Bobby Brownlie Ryan Harvey Mark Pawelek Tyler Colvin Josh Donaldson Josh Vitters Ryan Flaherty Andrew Cashner

It's 18 months of them diverting nearly every resource imaginable to the acquisition of prospects. We spent more money on the Cuban poor man's Dolis to go pretend to be a starter in Daytona than we did on our starting RFer.

I absolutely agree that there was no impact talent near the major leagues. What we had was a big pile of cheap, potentially adequate players who could fill roster spots. We needed to use our financial advantages to go out and get the impact players.

We have like one of those. Every post I draw out of TT is my gift, personally, to you.

Because I bring more relevant baseball content to this site in a day than you do in a year. We can't all be comic relief.

The 2011 draft *did* prop it up though, as did the recent classes of IFAs graduating to the states. Those all had the farm system on the rise.

I'm having a lot of trouble saying that right now. They never died fix the infield depth, they never clarified the outfield situation (we've still got DeJesus playing out of position), and we're already in a big variance hole with Baker and Garza combining to miss more than half a season worth of starts. Looks like a 75-win projection, which means a playoff spot is pretty much outside the reasonable error bars. Technically true, but that was after a pretty big wave that had just resolved. Barney became a full-time starter, Samardzija became a starting pitcher of some worth, Cashner became a guy who could be traded for Rizzo. We're loaded with cost-controlled talent right now, in part due to our front office's moves, but that doesn't negate that there was a path to get the cost-controlled talent to support a competitive team. As long as you draft better than Jim Hendry and Kenny Williams, that's a fine path to take. I've got a pretty big laundry list, personally, that includes questionable prospect overpayments, terrible roster decisions and a general lack of ability to find useful replacement players.

We suck right now because our current regime decided to take a big old pass on the 2011-12 offseason and let payroll drop by ~$35m. Our farm system was not nearly as terrible as people at the time or now want to act like it was.

Or just the opening cycle. Ideally, we'll be drafting and developing (although it's not going to be as easy without high picks or overslots) while we're good and will be able to reload much more painlessly in the future. If we can do it in the future, we could have done it now.